Display devices, such as those used in a vehicle, are capable of displaying information data to a user, by controlling pixels to create an image on a display screen. In order o enrich the informational content made available to a user and increase the safety of the user, there is a trend in the automotive industry that more information is displayed at the same time. In some applications, several display screens which may have various sizes and shapes are used for displaying information on one and the same display board, for instance. To that end, each screen is connected to an interface unit associated with a data processing unit which are arranged for controlling pixels of the display screen.
More generally speaking, it is nowadays common to use more than one display for displaying information in various applications such as automotive instrument cluster and infotainment console.
One with ordinary skills in the art seeking for an instrument cluster solution capable of supporting more than one display to allow displaying images on several screens would consider using an Integrated Circuit (IC) with a plurality of display interfaces to control each of the screens, respectively. However, this solution would give rise to costs that are substantially higher than in current state of the art. Indeed, the IC would have lots of pins and require more space on a printed circuit board (PCB) or increased silicon area in a single chip application such as a System-on-Chip (SoC) implementation.
Another solution could use multiple chips on a PCB with one chip per display, namely one chip for each of the screens to be controlled. But, again, this solution would add extra costs since several chips require more space on a PCB.
Still another solution may consist in using serial communication interfaces, for example: High Bandwidth Digital Interface (OpenLDI) or Digital Visual Interface (DVI) or High Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI). Such a high-end solution reduces the number of pins but uses expensive interfaces which complicate the System-On-Chip design. Thus, it cannot be used for a cost efficient and relatively small display systems.
To summarize, all possible solutions described in the forgoing have a significant cost impact and increase the complexity of a display system having a plurality of display screens.
Such issues can be of particular importance in applications such as the display of information on automobile dashboards. In such applications, the cost constraint can be very stringent. In addition, the space available on the dashboard for displaying information to the driver is limited, whereas a significantly increasing number of information of many types needs to be displayed, as mentioned above.
Accordingly, there is a need for a display system with high display capabilities allowing display of images on a plurality of screens while requiring a limited number of connections to display the images and not significantly increasing neither the complexity nor the cost of such display system.